Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog

There have been blogs, by others, wherein they write all about themselves.  They write about their likes, special preferences (such as favorite foods, books, and movies), social relationships, and so on and so forth.  Others write about the need to love oneself; they write about the beauty of really caring about oneself (first and foremost).  

What is oneself?  Most of us, one suspects, were educated to see the self as we were all programmed to see it.  This education is often very similar to the education that other countries have stuck to in the past, even the one which Adolf Hitler emerged from (who, by the way, loved himself dearly and who passionately encouraged others to adore him too).   

So, what is the self?  Is the self an autonomous entity separate from the environment, the whole, the rest of mankind, the animals?  When a person says that he knows himself, what does he — actually — know?  Is such knowledge a lot of recalled patterns of bygone preferences, tendencies, opinions, images, and methodologies that have occurred in (and “as”) the past?  Recalled patterns (of the past) are from the storehouse of memory.  Recollections, from (and “as”) that memory, are always old (i.e., of the past), limited (i.e., snap-shot-like), partial, and (therefore) incomplete.  Those recollections of self, additionally, are heavily influenced by the past education and culture in which one was raised.   One’s fundamental conceptions of self were poured into one (and absorbed) during one’s youth.  Recollections and labels “about the self” are always of the past.  They are images or linguistic symbols from (and about) “what was.”  

Many people feel empowered by an elevated sense of self.   Many are enamored about themselves and they write about themselves a lot (either positively or negatively), or they are very obsessed about their physical appearance.   However, the self may not necessarily be what society has had each of us accept and take for granted.   There is a very good chance that a lot of primitive miseducation has taken place for many years.  

Unfortunate is the man or woman whose self is a fenced in, segregated, walled-off conglomeration of past images and symbolic thoughts convinced that a special space isolates what they are (or what “one is”) from the rest of life on earth.  Being walled-in is a surefire recipe for depression, no matter how financially fortunate one’s life has been, no matter how wonderful one may (superficially) think one appears physically.  To have private dominion apart from the rest of life, as something special and separate, is no cup of tea that real perception is interested in sipping.   It may be that real liberation does not come from coddling and worshipping the isolated self, as so many immature and egocentric people tend to do, but (instead) comes about when the self is understood and joyfully transcended.   The circumference around an egocentric mind is always limited, primitive, self-concocted via absorbed patterns… and is standardized, mediocre, and regimented.  Most people are very immersed in (and “as”) such a circumference; very few of them will care anything whatsoever about prudently going beyond it.  A limited, walled-in circumference inevitably brings sorrow.  All of the psychological therapy and superficial entertainment in the world will not put an end to that sorrow.

Instead of coming up with notions about “oneself,” go out (for an enlightening change) and perceive without the separative boundaries and isolated perspectives that were implanted in (and “as”) the past.  Is the perceiver so very separate from the perceived?  Walls of delusion may experience a lot of things; however, walls of delusion will never understand and see the uncontaminated truth and the eternal.   Real understanding, bliss, and balance are not of dead limitation, stale recognition, and segregation.

From the poetry of Stephen Crane:

Super Thin Model (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Super Thin Model (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018